


aware of what light tastes like

by mapped



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: ...kinda?, Angst, Campaign: A Crown of Candy, Canonical Character Death, Exes, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24200095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapped/pseuds/mapped
Summary: Theo can still smell the sweetness of sugar plum on himself. Still taste the Fly spell cast on him, sparkling and saccharine. Though the cathedral is far behind him now, mentally he is still there, trapped beneath its cold, high vault, hurling himself against its windows, and the stone crossbeams refuse to crack beneath his weight no matter how hard he tries.Theo, remembering.
Relationships: Lapin Cadbury/Theobald Gumbar, One-sided Theobald Gumbar/Amethar Rocks
Comments: 14
Kudos: 100





	aware of what light tastes like

**Author's Note:**

> Me, inventing Lapin backstory WHOLESALE for this fic: I AM GALAXY BRAINING AND NONE OF YOU CAN STOP ME.
> 
> Spoilers for Episode 6 of A Crown of Candy!
> 
> Title from 'Taste' by Sleeping At Last.

Theo can still smell the sweetness of sugar plum on himself. Still taste the Fly spell cast on him, sparkling and saccharine. Though the cathedral is far behind him now, mentally he is still there, trapped beneath its cold, high vault, hurling himself against its windows, and the stone crossbeams refuse to crack beneath his weight no matter how hard he tries.

The cathedral floor runs with chocolate, floods with it, and in this rising sea of Lapin’s blood, thick and sweet and dark, Theo will float for a little while, and then drown.

* * *

On the road to Comida, after the ambush, he confronted the Chancellor.

When Lapin healed the King, Theo was close enough to know that this was no Bulbian miracle. He remembered the scent of this magic from childhood, from the days before the Ravening War and before the Concord, before the Bulbian Church became the religion of peace that bound together the whole of Calorum, and fewer and fewer people walked the Sweetening Path, at least openly.

Theo harbored no illusions about it: Lapin was the only reason King Amethar survived the ambush. All the training that Theo had put in over the decades, all of his strength and experience, had meant nothing in the end. He could not protect his King. He was no shield.

And Theo had never liked Lapin, but Theo is devoted to his King above all, and grudgingly he saw that Lapin had more value than he ever would, when it came to preserving the King’s life. Theo believes in deeds, not words, and it was only on the Sucrosi Road that Theo realized that Lapin was not just a man of words. But he’d had years of mistrusting Lapin, and now it was clear that his suspicions weren’t unfounded. Deceit was still deceit, even if Lapin had saved the King.

He needed to know he could trust Lapin.

So he went to see Lapin, one night, when they were staying at some minor Fructeran lord’s castle along the Glucian Road. And Lapin had been wily as ever, at first, evasive and rambling, and Theo had been distracted. Easily, always easily distracted by Lapin. So many times he had gotten into some heated argument with Lapin over nothing, and by the end of it the Princesses would have vanished, and both of them would look like fools. And Theo would swear to himself that he would learn his lesson next time, but he never did. He let it happen again and again, because—

Well.

He pressed Lapin, this time. “You know I don’t care if your power doesn’t come from the Bulb, Chancellor. I just need to know that your intentions are true, because you have been lying to us this entire time! Do you actually care about House Rocks, or do you have ulterior motives at play?”

And Lapin. Lapin said, “It has always been my patron’s wish for me to protect House Rocks, and it was the reason why I came to His Majesty’s court in the first place. We are united in the same purpose, Sir Theobald. That should satisfy you.”

“Your patron, the Sugar-Plum Fairy.”

Lapin was silent. In the flickering light from the candles he looked sculpted from stone, as if he belonged in that memorial hall in Castle Candy where the towering statues of Amethar’s four sisters kept their solemn, eternal vigil.

“My family were all followers of the Sweetening Path,” Theo said. “I’m not going to hold this information against you, Chancellor. If it were not for you, His Majesty would be dead.”

Lapin inclined his head slightly. “I will do my utmost to keep him and the Princesses safe. You understand that I must uphold my appearance as a Primogen of the Bulbian Church, for all our sakes.”

“I understand.” But Theo was frustrated. Lapin had been hiding this part of himself for so long, and still he was reluctant to give up anything. “It must be difficult,” he offered. “Don’t you tire of keeping secrets? Now that you have me in your confidence, I hope you know that you can tell me more, if you want someone to listen.”

“I have made deception a part of my nature. It is what is required of me. I do not feel its burden.”

Theo knew that for a lie, and he knew that Lapin, whose tongue was the slyest Theo had ever known, was not trying as hard as he could to lie well. He reached out and touched Lapin, for what felt like the first time in years. He laid his hand on Lapin’s cheek, and Lapin did not flinch.

“Lapin,” Theo said. “Thank you for healing him.” 

Lapin shivered; Theo could feel it. And then he put his hands on Theo’s shoulders and pushed him away, gently. He was not strong, but Theo didn’t think he had always been this frail, either. Theo had not studied Lapin so closely for a long time. His chocolate skin was paling with age, flecking with white, and Theo had only just noticed.

Theo supposed that this was it, that he was being dismissed for the last time, but then Lapin said, “Perhaps if you come and see me again tomorrow night, Sir Theobald, I will be able to tell you more.”

* * *

When Lapin first came to Castle Candy, the war was fresh in everyone’s memory, and Theo often woke up disoriented, wondering why he was not in a tent. He had gotten used to fighting, to just being focused on living through the day and nothing beyond. He had gotten used, too, to how soldiers were with each other—he had slept with other men without really thinking about it. Just to have a heart to beat against his, reminding him that he was still alive. Just to swallow someone’s gasps with his mouth, reminding him that such sounds could represent pleasure and not pain.

The one man he had really wanted, though, was someone he never had, and could never have.

And now he was living in that man’s castle and waking up alone in a solid bed every morning.

At King Amethar’s wedding feast, Theo wanted to drink himself to oblivion on the Fructeran wine, a gift from Emperor Uvano to his dear friend on this happy occasion, but he was on duty, and he had to be alert and ready always, so he did not drink. Instead he watched Lapin, making sure that the rabbit was not up to no good. Not once did he direct his gaze to where His Majesty sat radiant and crowned, next to his new queen.

Theo had not touched a drop of alcohol, so he had no excuse for what happened later that night between him and Lapin after all the merriment was over, after the bards had stopped singing of King Amethar’s exploits into the deepening night. Theo told himself that he was only trying to get closer to Lapin in order to learn more about him, to ascertain his history and motivations. It was, he insisted to himself, for the security of House Rocks.

Except Theo never uncovered any of Lapin’s secrets. What he did was exactly what he had done in the war, just throw himself against another person for comfort, but it wasn’t the war anymore. And if he was throwing himself against Lapin for comfort, because the man he loved was not only a prince anymore but the married king of his country, what was Lapin doing?

It didn’t only happen once, either. It kept happening, until Lapin said, “I am a Primogen of the Church. I should not be doing this.” 

And that was the end of that.

After that, Theo argued with the Chancellor all the more, at every chance he got.

* * *

It was days of travelling to Comida, and every night after Theo spent time with the Princesses, teaching Her Highness Ruby Rocks the Find Familiar spell and practising magic with her, he would go to Lapin.

Lapin gave Theo his story slowly, like the stream of black treacle that ran behind the house that Theo lived in as a child, the stream that Theo would sit beside for hours when he was little, dipping his hand in to part the molasses every now and then.

Lapin had had a lover. He was young, and had fallen in love with a lollipop man, and then the war came. Lapin wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t a soldier, but the war was the war. He was weak and terrified of dying, and so he had done the only thing he could think of, the only thing that could give him any chance of survival. There was no time to study magic, but there _was_ time to prostrate himself in a circle of sugar-plum stones and beg for power, to promise three wishes in return for spells.

He made it through the war, but his lover did not. The spells were not enough. When he returned to Candia, scarred and grieving and plagued by nightmares, he had bowed before the Sugar-Plum Fairy again, and asked her why. _Why did you not help me save him?_

 _Oh Lapin,_ she had murmured, her wings whispering through the air as she flitted close and kissed his forehead, _you came to me because you wanted to save_ yourself _, not him. I helped you do that, didn’t I? Look, you’re still here._

With her second wish she had brought him to King Amethar’s side, but she never told him why. Only that the royal family was important and he had to protect them.

“What we did, then,” Lapin said. “When we ended up in each other’s beds more often than not. That was not terribly wise, but I was not a very happy man, and I missed him very much. And making you hate me felt a great deal better than hating myself.”

Theo understood now that Lapin had been as much in need of comfort as he had. “I don’t hate you,” he said, and was surprised to find that it was true. Arguing with Lapin had simply been the closest Theo could get to sleeping with him, and Theo had thrilled in pushing, delighted in watching Lapin snap. More than once when they had argued and then lost the Princesses, Theo had wanted to laugh, because it was so _absurd_ , how they kept letting this happen because they were too caught up in provoking each other. He had wanted to laugh with Lapin at how the Princesses had bested them once again; wanted to laugh, and then shove Lapin against a wall and breathlessly kiss him.

But they never laughed. They never touched each other. They raised their voices, and glared, and stalked off in opposite directions. They were just two old, weary men, repeating the same patterns.

Now Lapin looked at him and almost smiled. “Truly?” he asked, and Theo kissed him, and the years didn’t melt away, but Theo nearly did. He was still old, still weary, and he was sick of having to be strong all the time. He wanted, for once, just to be weak. To fold into Lapin, and to set down his heart, which was heavier than all his armour, and let himself rest.

Later, as the candles burned low, they lay together in bed just for a while, and Theo held Lapin in his arms, smoothing his hand over one of Lapin’s ears, which drooped softly under his touch. “I wish you could’ve told me from the start.”

“Forgive me, but I could not trust anybody then. You must know, that even though it was the Sugar-Plum Fairy’s wish that brought me to the royal family, I do care about them. You must know that.”

Theo knew, even if it was still a shock to him, the recent revelation that Lapin cared about anyone other than himself. He nuzzled Lapin’s neck, thoughtfully. “I don’t think you said—what was her first wish?”

“Let me keep some secrets for myself still, Theobald,” Lapin mumbled, burrowing his head into the pillow but not leaving Theo’s embrace. “They’re all I have.”

* * *

In the days to come, Theo will return to Candia. He will go to the sugar-plum stones, standing tall and shimmering and twilight-purple in the woods, and see a teacup lying there, broken but barely held together with thin sugary glue. He will think about Lapin’s lollipop staff, lying shattered on the cathedral floor, perhaps the very image of Lapin’s lover, crushed on the battlefield decades ago.

And when the Sugar-Plum Fairy appears, in all her eerie beauty, Theo will bow before her—more deeply than Lapin ever did, surely—and ask her for power. Power to heal others, and to continue protecting House Rocks better than he’s been able to, thus far. To take over from her fallen servant. He will expect her to ask for three wishes, but she will not. Instead, she will ask him for his secret memories of Lapin, the ones of the two of them intertwined in the dark.

He will hesitate, but his King’s face will not fade from his mind. He will ask her then, whether she will tell him of her first wish that Lapin once promised to her, and she will smile with all her eyes and whisper it in his ear. He will not cry, but he will be close to tears as he agrees to her pact and feels the memories leave him like all the stars winking out in the night sky, until he doesn’t know better at all. Until the sky was always starless to begin with.

But right now, he still has those memories. Right now the stars still illuminate the night sky, faintly shining, and he is on the outskirts of Comida. The Princesses are huddled together with their father, and even Liam is curled up beside Jet. And Theo prays like he hasn’t done since he was a child, to the sweet spirits of Candia but especially to the Sugar-Plum Fairy, and thanks Lapin for saving all of them.

Lapin did care, and the fact that they are all alive will forever be proof of that, and Theo will never forget how it felt to soar through the cathedral like a storm with Lapin’s Fly spell cast on him. One day, when he dies—as heroically as Lapin did, he hopes—it will be the last thing he thinks of.

Taking flight with the scent of sugar plum in the air, and Lapin saying, _Oh, shut up._

* * *

Long live the Sweetening Path.

**Author's Note:**

> Look at this hell we're in where we're all mourning a chocolate rabbit!
> 
> Comments are dearly appreciated! Come find me [@reluming](http://reluming.tumblr.com/) on tumblr where I will surely be reblogging a lot of Lapin fanart over the next few days (the fanart is all SO GOOD, my god).


End file.
